


Pledge to protect

by pixiedurango



Series: Richard Armitage - Sensual Visual Prompts [19]
Category: Pilgrimage (2017), Raymond de Merville - Fandom, Richard Armitage - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bar Fight, Bar Room Brawl, Chivalry, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Protectiveness, bad guy does good stuff, ex foreign legion Raymond, modern!AU, protecting the girl, some assholes harassing a woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 14:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiedurango/pseuds/pixiedurango
Summary: This is a stand alone fic but technically the prequel to "Mine to protect" which takes place later in the same setting.Raymond de Merville is a fresh dropout of the French Foreign Legion and tries to adjust to his new life, which he has no clue how and what it will be. Hanging out in shady bars he's coming to witness a lot of shit - and he honestly could not care less.But when he sees a group of guys harass a woman, he takes action.





	Pledge to protect

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mine to protect](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17210975) by [pixiedurango](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiedurango/pseuds/pixiedurango). 



> This belongs to a collection of prompts I opened up for my followers on tumblr to choose a character portrayed by Richard Armitage and a collection of sensual/sexy gifs I put together merely for this purpose.  
> After the tumblr purge many of the stories got banned/deleted/hidden which I assume due to the nature of the gifs since the stories itself are rarely really explicit.  
> This is why I eventually decided to transfer my works to my Ao3 which I didn't do for the sheer number of Fandoms/Shows/Characters those stories belong to. My admiration for Richard Armitage let me write all those stories and I hope people will like it.  
> The gifs will be posted along with the stories so readers might decide whether I caught the spirit or not.

Technically Raymond de Merville was not even supposed to be here. And even less he  _wanted_  to waste his time in a dark and grimy club but after  _business_  had been done and he could have been free to go wherever he wanted.

But he suddenly realized that he had nowhere to go. Of course he had a place to sleep but the anonymous hotel room he had rented for the first month after closing the chapter légion étrangère was less than appealing.

He could have changed the club but actually it only would be a change of faces and the rest would remain the same.

Raymond was brooding into his drink and it was so obvious, the bartender had already placed the bottle next to him so could help himself. Thinking about the future was an entirely new concept to the world of Raymond de Merville. Thinking beyond how to spend the next days or even just hours. How to stay alive and how to fulfill his objectives until they were done and he would get a new one.   
Life had not exactly been easier back then but he already had realized that it had been some weird kind of luxury being taken care of in the way the légion always had done it.

Messenger- and driving jobs, thug work, even some negotiations with some leaders of an archaic clan which lately was trying to take over Marseilles in terms of drugs and girls:   
This had been what he had been doing since he had gotten his papers to be a free man.

Raymond almost snorted into his vodka.

_Freedom_ … he thought the word like he would speak it out loud. Cynical, frustrated and disillusioned. Angry.

Being in his mid forties he was in the shape of his life and at the peak of his training and skills. And still they had demobed him. Honorably of course, because he never had left any evidences but at the end of the day it did not even matter whether being cashiered or not. Out was out. Withdrawn from service like a dysfunctional weapon (which he wasn’t).

Raymond de Merville rarely had so many choices before and if he would have been honest with himself it was overwhelming to be so free  to choose and still so limited in actual ideas where to go and what to do. For the first time in his life there were no superiors  - his father, teachers, trainers, soldiers - telling him what to do and what to think.

If he would have dared to admit it, he would have admitted that he was feeling completely lost.

~   ~   ~

When the turmoil began, Raymond barely had an eye, not to mention the mind for other people’s business.

But the bunch of men, all overly tall and bulk and  _very_  drunk, eagerly and forceful cornering one of the girls working around here was no longer to ignore, when they started groping and clearly harassing the girl. She was petite but with overly large tits and remarkable hips. A mass of black hair down her back and almost as much cheap fake bling bling at the front. Stuffed into white heels, semi opaque bootcut leggins and a laced croptop was it clear, she was a professional at work like 99% of the ladies in this club. 

But that should not mean she was free prey for anyone (who was probably not even willing to pay for her services) to touch and scare her.  
And she clearly  _was_  scared.

Raymond looked around whether her mac* was somewhere to be seen but obviously she and all the other visibly bored girls were alone in here.

He was no chivalrous man.   
Actually he could not care less about other people, no matter whether women or men. But if there was something that Raymond actually could come to hate with all his guts was larger groups preying on someone weak. He prouded himself that never under his command any of his men actually ever dared to attempt any rape or torture of children and elderly. Civilians had been off limits, because war itself was a dirty business but Raymond had always tried to keep it to some simple and basically decent rules of humanity against civilians.   
Having decency and some delicate form of peace and honor among his men had always been important to Major de Merville. He had always been a hard but just superior and he was convinced that sometimes it was necessary to rule by fear rather than by leniency.

There was an audible sigh when Raymond swung down his long muscular legs from his stool and walked over to the group who had finally fully cornered the girl. Cheering and encouraging each other to always go a step further, try a bit more. Poking her, touching her hair, pulling it, grabbing for her tits, her ass, between her legs.   
She was trying her best to fight them off but she was only one girl who’s only defense was yelling at her predators with something that could be Portuguese or something deep down the Balkan. She obviously spoke neither French nor English but honestly it was too loud to determine a language and it was about the last thing Raymond was interested in right now anyway.

He pushed the two tallest guys aside. Engaged in a fast, raw and hard brawl. Both beyond drunk and not really able to grasp what was happening beside someone trying to steal their toy.

The punches came out of nowhere and surprisingly fast considered how wasted they were but Raymond saw them coming anyway and I took him about 20 seconds max to knock them both down and out. The other three or four guys were as impressed as Raymond had hoped for. Rather undisturbed and with a smug grin he held out his hand to the dark haired girl, offering to follow him back onto the dance floor to take her out of the danger zone.

She grabbed his hand and came with him with the instincts of a drowning person to follow a rescuer and before he could realize they stood at the center of round and she started to move her hips in a pretty hypnotic and alluring way. Maybe it was just the way she moved, but he was under the strong impression that it was the only way she knew to say thank you.

Raymond was anything but a dancer and actually he felt insecure like a teenager all in a sudden. Of course no one was supposed to know, because showing weakness was obviously no option. Not with the bunch of drunken hunks in the back. Staying in control was vital. Therefore he summoned everything he possibly had ever known in his life about casual dancing - which was not much and ended somewhere shortly after John Travolta in  _Staying Alive_  which was decidedly not helpful here. But it was enough to get him moving somehow.

To keep on pretending that he was just someone who was a willing customer of the girl’s services so he could keep her away from her harassers.

They danced for a while. He ordered her overpriced champagne and he didn’t object when she finally took his hand and pulled him out of the ugly club.

He tried to find out where her mac was, but she only ever smiled at him with that fake hooker smile that was the same no matter where in the world you met them. Pulled him down the street, trying to find out where he lived and nodded eagerly when he finally told her the name of his hotel. Everything she did was eager and overly bubbly and she was chattering in her own language, sprinkling in French and English praises of his appearance and how strong and brave he was. Business talk and he let her but not buying a single word she said.

He had no idea what to do with her but when he realized that a black car was following them, he knew that eventually her mac had shown up. She pulled him further, urged him to move faster, still laughing and giggling but her brown eyes showed she was at the brink of panic. He obeyed. He did not reply to her words, or tried to ask any more questions. Raymond just did what she implied and sped up so they would reach his place as fast as possible. He had not even the intention to actually sleep with her. He preferred women he would not have to pay for and he did not intend to change that habit tonight.

Of course he  _would_  pay her. This much was clear. Generously and probably enough to keep her the whole night. He would offer her a shower. And his bed. While he was pushing together the two rugged plush chairs standing around in his room.   
She should be able to clean up herself and find some undisturbed sleep.

Raymond de Merville was not a good man and he knew that.  
He had not been a good partner to his girlfriends or even a good husband when he had tried it once.  
He had killed and tortured. For money, for greed, for the Légion and even for purely selfish reasons. He had been an invader and a conqueror. He was the man for the dirty work and he had never minded that a second.

Actually had no idea why he suddenly felt the need to help a prostitute in the dirty streets of Marseilles. He for sure did not believe in atonement of any kind but something in the eyes of this particular girl had moved something deep within. And he was pretty certain would not want to explore it.

He could not save her other than tonight. Neither her nor her sisters out there in the streets and brothels all over the world. He was one man alone and it was not his job and responsibility and actually he was not even interested in being assigned to it.

But once in a while he remembered how it had felt good to  _be_  good.  
Back then when he was still a boy and his grand-mére had talked to him about love, altruism and compassion.

Then she had fed him with milk and pastries.

And for a short while the world had been a good and safe place for Raymond de Merville.

 

*mac = french slang for pimp


End file.
